Comment by myrmidon

> Germany has been turning cheap gas from Russia into expensive cars, glass and chemicals for decades without me noticing that was all the deal was.

You're overstating this a bit; there is a lot of coal in Europe (natural gas only got ahead of coal in Germany over the last years).

> Europe just sucks in oil, gas, uranium and some coal from the rest of the world to give back what exactly?

Finished products (like cars), some services, bit of tourism? What exactly is the problem here?

Uranium mining in Europe would be perfectly viable, but no one wants to, because modern practices basically ruin groundwater quality for a long time (in-situ leeching). This applies to a bunch of other things, too; hard to justify mining cadmium in the Alps when you can just buy the finished product for cheaper while keeping your local environment intact.

> The solar panels come from China so it is not as if Europe is leading the way in terms of tech.

They used to produce lots of those in Germany-- it's just become way cheaper to buy them from China, especially after local subsidies ran out. You could make an argument that the germans shoulda tried to keep the industry somewhat alive for strategic reasons, though.